HAWAIIAN

HAWAIIAN A Pacific language belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian family and cognate with Samoan and MAORI. It has eight consonants, /h, k, l, m, n, p, w/ and the GLOTTAL STOP, and ten vowels /a, e, i, ɔ, ʊ/ (each long and short). Hawaiian words end in vowels (lei, kahuna), consonants are separated by vowels (Kalakaua, Lapakahi), and many words have no consonants at all (aia there, oiaio truly) or more vowels than consonants (heiau temple). Among the differences between Hawaiian and some other Polynesian languages are: /k/ for /t/ (kapu for tabu), /l/ for /r/ (kalo for taro), a glottal stop where some have /k/, marked in technical writing by a reverse inverted apostrophe (') and in general usage by an ordinary apostrophe (') (mu'umu'u or mu'umu'u for mukumuku shapeless, a loose-fitting woman's dress). The glottal stop is phonemic and therefore contrastive: ka'u mine, kau yours. The sound written as l may have been close to /r/. When missionary printers standardized the language in Roman after 1820, they voted six to two in favour of l; when the personal name of King Kamehameha II was set in type, he preferred Liholiho to Rihoriho. Repeating a word base usually has a special meaning: lau leaf, laulau a bundle of food baked in leaves; pai slap, paipai to drive fish by slapping the water. BORROWINGS into Hawaiian have generally been adapted to its phonology: hokela hotel, kelepona telephone, kula school, nupepa newspaper, pipi beef, puke book, and such biblical names as Apikaila Abigail, Kaniela Daniel, Malia Maria, Kamaki Thomas. borrowings from Hawaiian into English are common locally but few in the general language: a'a and pahoehoe lava which cools rough and smooth respectively, ukelele/ukulele a jumping flea whose name was given to an adaptation of the Portuguese guitar.

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Hawaiian

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught in some Hawaiian schools and remains important as a symbol of ethnic identity. It also is an official language of the state of Hawaii. Proto-Polynesian, the parent language of Hawaiian, was spoken in W Polynesia c.1500–1200 BC Hawaiian bears significant phonological similarities to the other Polynesian languages; consonant and vowel correspondences among the languages is common. Hawaiian has five long and five short vowels and eight consonants. It differs from most of the other Polynesian languages by its lack of the consonant t, which became k in Hawaiian as it diverged from the parent language.

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Hawaiian

Ha·wai·ian
/ həˈwīən; -ˈwoi-ən/
•
n.
1.
a native or inhabitant of Hawaii.
2.
the Austronesian language of Hawaii.
•
adj.
of or relating to Hawaii, its people, or their language. ∎ Geol.
relating to or denoting a type of volcanic eruption in which fluid basaltic lava is produced, as is typical of volcanoes in Hawaii.

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